Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Laurel Brishel Prichard University of New Mexico/ Talk Radio News Service

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) expressed confidence Monday that the Senate will make headway on financial regulatory reform this week, despite mounting challenges from Republicans.

“I'm going to work on the assumption … that when we bring this bill up later this week that we'll have the votes across the board...to allow us to debate this legislation, consider amendments and move forward," said Dodd during a morning press conference.

Dodd added that if Republicans have suggestions for a better strategy toward reforming regulation of the financial industry, then they need to come forward soon. Otherwise, the effort to move forward with the legislation will continue.

“The door has been open … it’s never been closed. My Republican colleagues on the committee and leadership know that,” Dodd explained. “But I’m waiting for the knock on the door.”

The legislation would put a $50 billion fund in place that “too big to fail” banks would pay into in order to ensure that they would receive assistance if they ever came into hardship. According to Dodd, the idea for the program, similar to what smaller banks do with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, came from the Republicans, so their recent opposition was not foreseen.

“This was a Republican suggestion to have a pre-payment in the bill,” said Dodd. “I’m willing to listen to some other ideas, provided we don’t expose the taxpayer [to risk.]”

According to the chairman, reform legislation would have prevented Goldman Sachs Group Inc. from committing fraud, as alleged recently by the Securities Exchange Commission.

“Our bill would have prevented those kinds of events from happening,” said Dodd.